


Survival: A Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter AU

by princehamlet



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 11:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11252664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princehamlet/pseuds/princehamlet
Summary: Darsha Assant, Lorn Pavan, and I-5YQ know precious information regarding the Naboo blockade and return of the Sith. This put Darth Maul on their tail, who wants to exterminate them and all of their knowledge. However, before the Sith can get the upper hand, the trio decides it's time to remove themselves from the situation, despite the struggle of it.Can Lorn learn how to healthily deal with his feelings, his fears? Can Darsha allow herself to succumb to the reality in which she is not a Jedi, and she is away from everything she has ever known? Will I-Five's circuits overload as he tries to take care of these two frightened, uncertain adults? Read this fic and see!





	Survival: A Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter AU

"I can't go, Lorn. I just can't." Ex-Padawan Darsha Assant exclaimed, her soft eyes shining with emotion. 

Lorn Pavan let out a frustrated groan, shaking his head at her insistence. In his experience, Jedi were always this stubborn. In fact, almost the whole lot Lorn found completely dissatisfying, hypocritical, and awful -- yet he found Darsha to be the lone soul in the 'exception' category. How they had ended up here -- thrown together, on the run, and possibly mutually in love --he'd never understand. "Dar, we're going to die if we stay on Coruscant. Do you want to die?"

She tipped her head upward slightly, in the regal, superior way the Jedi had. "I will die if I must -- doing what's _right_ , here on Coruscant. My home." 

Lorn slapped his hand hard on his forehead, unable to resist a groan once more.  
I-Five, the silver protocol droid standing behind Lorn, chimed in: "I believe Lorn's trying to communicate that he's displeased with your responses, Padawan Assant, and is so baffled that he's lost the will to construct sentences like a functioning human being."  
"Just Darsha's fine, I-Five. And thank you."  
"See? _She_ appreciates me," I-Five prodded Lorn with a metallic finger before turning away. "And she's got a good point. How much do our lives matter in the grand scheme of things?"

Swatting away the droid's touch (to Darsha's amusement), Lorn raged on: "Easy for you to say, snappy, you're a _droid._ Listen, I get it, okay? Coruscant's my home, too. Hell, my son was born here -- lives here! But Darsha, we've got a crazy-fucking-bananas Sith on our tail who won't stop until he makes our _heads_ lonely for our _shoulders_. And I-- I'd miss Coruscant too, and I want to do what's right, too, but -- not as much as I want to stay alive. You know? I can't keep living looking over my shoulder, wondering if there's gonna be a demonic Zabrak rounding the corner. I just can't live like that, and I know you can't either, and I know that--"  
"Stop, and take a breath," I-Five interuppted.  
Begrudgingly, Lorn did so.  
"Okay. Now that we're properly oxygenated," The droid rubbed his hands together in a very humanlike fashion, "Allow _me_ to stretch my rhetoric circuits."

Darsha raised a brow, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. She was disturbed that these two were really considering this. The idea of abandoning the home that held the Jedi Temple ... well, it made her uncertain, and rightly so. Yet she'd listen anyways.  
"Lorn makes some good points, Darsha, but not as gracefully." The comment from I-Five made Lorn's expression twist in good-natured distaste. "We can still get the information to the Temple -- just not post-haste. We should wait until the murderous rampage of the Sith cools down; preferably offplanet, if you ask me. That will be best for all parties involved." 

"But what if when we get back, it's too late?" Darsha countered.  
"It's a risk that's worth taking," I-Five replied with certainty. "If we stay, we may die uselessly, the information dying with us."  
"I... I need some time to think about this..." The ex-Padawan murmured, unhappy that she had already decided deep inside her that I-Five had a strong point. She tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment as she considered.  
"Miss Darsha, we are pressed for time," The droid reminded her softly. Lorn was surprised: I-Five was never so gentle. He looked at Darsha in concern. 

"I know," The words were a whisper on her lips -- not from sadness, per se, but as a side effect of concentration. She was reaching out with the Force, spreading its tendrils across the nearby city, feeling life, breath, the beautiful chaos that Coruscant was known for. She was placing her hand over her home planet one more time, as if solemnly etching its emotion into her heart. The city, although one she loved, was steeped in the dark side; it felt like now was its worse, the fear and anger and hatred and doubt heightened by Darsha's own fear of the ancient Sith. Coruscant, although always inhabiting vast criminal communities, wasn't truly safe for the Jedi anymore. Perhaps her home had never _really_ been here. Perhaps she had always been on the path to fail her Trials and meet Lorn. Perhaps this was where it was all headed anyways -- a slightly paranoid life with these two men. She meditated on that. 

Lorn watched her with a steady gaze. He would never understand the Force, and to him, that was a plain fact. He'd never understand why the Force had taken his wife and son away from him, why the Force sent a Zabrak assassin on his tail, why the Force always put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, why the Force had given him I-Five, why the Force had made him fall in love with Darsha Assant. Why did anything happen, ever? Couldn't Lorn go far away enough to place where things just didn't happen? Couldn't he outrun the Force in the same way he was outrunning the Sith?

Snapping him from his thoughts was Darsha's voice, clear as bells: "Let's get out of here." She said it with such intense certainty that one would think she was the one who initially proposed the idea.  
"That's the spirit," Lorn said rather unenthusiastically, with the knowledge that whatever was ahead would not come close to being easy. He avoided I-Five's gaze as he pressed a hand comfortingly atop her shoulder and squeezed. If the droid could mockingly smile, Lorn knew he would. 

"I called us a transport while you were meditating," I-Five efficiently remarked. "We can pay them with some of the credits we ripped off from the bank."  
"Hooray for fraud," Lorn chimed in.  
"What if I had held my ground?" Darsha asked, a tired smile curling her lips upward.  
"We would have left without you," The droid stated. Lorn laughed.  
Darsha's smile broadened with genuinity, her prim hand cupping the droid's cold cheek with humorous affection before she turned away. "I suppose we'll have to get uplevel to meet that transport."

"Yes, that may be a problem. The odds of the Sith encountering us while we're on the move are 77.5 percent." I-Five claimed, his vocabulator expressing the distinct dread they were all experiencing. "And the odds are even worse of being arrested by police transports for credit fraud."  
Darsha shot Lorn a sharp look. Silently, he gulped and retracted his former _hooray for fraud_.

"Well boys, we've made it this far." The woman said decidedly, scraping together what little enthusiasm and hope she had in her words. "We can make it farther."  
"Then we'll go to Tatooine." Lorn followed suit, "And open up a tavern and live like kings. Poor, sad, paranoid kings."  
"That sounds absolutely miserable." I-Five interjected.  
"Yes, it does." Lorn actually agreed. "I just don't want to get my throat cut by Coruscanti demon spawn."  
"That's too bad for you. I wouldn't feel a thing," The droid said carelessly. "My body can still function without a head."

"The _transport,_ " Darsha reminded them, pulling them from their internal conflict as Lorn opened his mouth to counter.  
"The transport," Lorn said.  
"The transport." I-Five agreed. 

They stood in a moment of contemplative silence. 

Until finally, Darsha once more spoke up: "-- Here's a plan. We find a Raptor: one of those Coruscanti gang members from before."  
Lorn built off of it: "We rob them blind, so at least we're armed."  
"Maybe they'll have credits," I-Five saw where it was going.  
Darsha's head bobbed in several consecutive nods. "It's low, but they'd do it to us."  
"So much for peacekeeper, eh, Miss Jedi?" Lorn teased, chuckling until Darsha drove her elbow hard into his ribs. Yet she found herself laughing too.  
"Then, perhaps we make the Raptor take us through the secret tunnels that travel up Coruscant -- since that _is_ how those rats get around." I-Five proposed, unable to share in their laughter. 

Lorn spread his fingers in a fan, making a small motion & accompanying it with: "-- Jedi mind tricks."  
"Precisely," The Jedi in question pointed to Lorn, turning to I-Five for approval. "Once we're uplevel, we meet your pilot. How is that?"

"...Only a 25 percent chance of failure," I-Five finally said, his voice sounding impressed. "We may actually _survive_ this plan."  
"May the Force be with us," The girl said strongly, much to Lorn's discomfort. Never had a number lower than 50 sounded so sweet to Darsha Assant.  
"Here's to 25 percent," Lorn said, before clapping his hands together with finality. "Here's to surviving, team. Let's move out."


End file.
